Customer call centers, or simply, “call centers,” are often the first point of contact for customers seeking direct assistance from manufacturers and service vendors. Call centers provide customer support and problem resolution are reachable by telephone, including data network-based telephone services, such as Voice-Over-Internet (VoIP), or by a Web application that allows customers to make calls. Although World Wide Web- and email-based customer support are becoming increasingly available, call centers still offer a convenient and universally-accessible forum for remote customer assistance. The timeliness and quality of service provided by call centers is critical to ensuring customer satisfaction. Minimizing delays is crucial, even when caller volume is high.
Within a call center, agents generally receive incoming calls from customers and address the customers' concerns. Supervisors manage the agents by tracking and reviewing agent performance, call efficiency, and customer satisfaction, among other performance metrics. The supervisors generally relay the performance feedback to the agents during a meeting, such as an in-person meeting, such as in a brick and mortar call center, or via a telephone call for remotely-located agents.
To conduct the meeting, the agent must first be removed from a call queue so that the agent no longer receives incoming customer calls. However, removal of an agent from the call queue can increase customer hold time, such as when the meeting is scheduled during a time when the call center becomes busy and the agent is needed to answer calls or when the agent is needed to answer a specific type of inquiry that other agents cannot satisfy. Therefore, Removing an agent from a queue to attend a meeting with his supervisor can result in long hold times and create frustration of the callers, which leads to an unsatisfactory customer experience.
Accordingly, a system and method to efficiently schedule meetings with agents without disrupting a flow of the call center is needed. Preferably, the system and method schedule the meetings when an agent is most available.